I’ve just done the Westminster Hour with John Rentoul of the Independent on Sunday and we agreed afterwards that there is one question we could not have answered. Why on earth did Andrew Adonis accept his new job in the Department of Transport?
The City Academies programme was his life. Anyone who knows him knew he went at it with monastic vocation. Every day was a battle against the system. Loosening the fist of government from schools was a task that beat Thatcher and Blair. For all Adonis efforts he about 85 City Academies up, against his target of 400. Given that there are 3,500 state schools, it shows what a slow, wearisome and uphill battle he was fighting. He has literally been dragged into the high court by the unions and their proxies who are trying to find ways to stop parental choice. He devoted every part of his formidable energy to the programme, and Blair personally drew from Brown an assurance that Adonis would keep his job. Now, I suspect at the behest of the unions who control Labour’s financing, he has gone.
The City Academy programme, already distorted by Brown’s reintroduction of local authority control, is effectively dead. It will run on what momentum Adonis gave it. The single best policy of the Blair years has finally be killed by Brown.
But why does Adonis accept this? His statement about being anxious to take on new challenges has the authenticity of a hostage tape. Why not walk, as Browne did and as Cruddas obviously did from whatever deal he was offered?
Michael Gove told me recently he would hire Adonis “like a shot”. Adonis is on the side of the public, against the system and that is probably why he was fired. Hundreds of pupils from deprived backgrounds have access to independent schools due to his efforts. The tragedy is that it could have been thousands. His departure perfectly illustrates the destructiveness of the Brown agenda. Brown’s legacy to Labour will be to have destroyed Blair’s few real achievements with nothing put in their place.
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